PHF ‘altered’ congress meeting minutes

KARACHI: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) wanted to dispatch the minutes of the meeting of PHF congress last meeting in back dates, which was held six months back in December 2014.
The PHF bosses wanted to dispatch the minutes to congress members after allegedly inserting age restrictions for the appointment of PHF officials, informed sources revealed to ‘The News’ on Wednesday.
The sources said that the amendment was not proposed in the meeting.
It may be noted that the current PHF heads wanted to stop appointment of some former Olympians in the PHF, so they chose this way to stop them.
They say that according to the PHF constitution people over 70 cannot become president and those over 65 cannot be secretary of PHF.
But the sources said that PHF’s current management was trying to protect its seats by such tactics.
Now that it has become clear that they will not remain in power in PHF, they are trying to stop their opponents from getting the coveted seats, a group of former Olympians says.
Qasim Khan, a former international player who represented Pakistan police in the PHF congress, said that he had not received the copy of the minutes of the PHF congress meeting so far.
He was of view that only those would receive the minutes’ copy in back dates who were favorites of the PHF officials and had joy trips and other perks.
Qasim criticised the PHF officials for joy trips with the national team. He said he had raised voice in this respect in the last meeting.
A source who is involved in the affairs of national hockey said that the entire election of PHF was fake as the national game had been restricted to a few districts of Punjab, while the majority of hockey community had been kept away from the election so that PHF’s officials could easily get their close associates elected.
The PHF authorities imposed age restrictions to stop their opponents who were aged.
A source who sat in the congress meeting confirmed that the age restriction for PHF slots had not been proposed in the meeting.
“We have also copies of the PHF constitution where there is no age restriction,” a former Olympian said. “If they made amendment in the constitution without consent of the PHF congress members it would be another blunder,” he said.
The federal government has already sought the opinion of Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) about any age restriction in the appointments of Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF).